Catherine Fisher: Darkwater

It was past midday, but there was no point going home. After a while the sky darkened; it began to drizzle steadily, and the numbness in her hand wore off. It hurt now, throbbing hard, and she pulled it well into her sleeve out of the wind.

At the back of the cove the Darkwater came down the cliff in tiny falls; she turned and trudged back there, following her own solitary trail of prints over the empty, windswept sand.

For now, she thought, she wouldn’t tell Martha, or her father. She’d find another job first. Whatever she did, though, on Saturday Martha would expect three shillings. Every week, money on the table. This week there’d be none. How would they eat? How would they manage? For a second, panic gripped her.

The Darkwater ran sluggishly into the sand. She crouched and washed her hot hand. Blood clouded the stream.

“Looks nasty, that.”

She turned, quick with surprise.

A tramp was huddled up under the overhang of the cliff, out of the wind. After a good look at him she turned back, plunging her swollen fingers into the stream. “It is.”

“Strap?” he asked, interested.

“A cane.”

“Ah. Felt plenty of those meself, in me time.” His white hair was cut short, like stubble. She noticed he had quite a camp under the cliff, with a tin can boiling over a fire, and a scrawny dog gnawing something disgusting. The tramp edged up, against the rock.

“Made some space for thee.”

She stood nervously. “I have to get home.”

“Tha don’t look eager. It’s good soup. Warm you up.”

Sarah hesitated. The man looked old. His overcoat was tied with rope and the boots he wore had obviously been someone else’s. He also had only one eye. The other was a blank emptiness; it fascinated her and she stared till she realized he was grinning.

“Sorry.”

“Used to it, girlie. Come on. I’m not dangerous.” Clumsy in torn mittens, he was pouring soup from the tin into a chipped mug and it smelled wonderful. She hadn’t eaten since yesterday, so hungrily she sat opposite him and took it. Her right hand was swelling fast, red weals rising like the ridges in the sand. “Cut and run?” he said, making a strange wheezing noise. She realized he was laughing.

“In a way.” Cautious, she tasted the liquid. It was hot, fishy. Salty. “What’s in this?”

He shrugged. “Mussels. Samphire. Lobster.”

“Lobster!”

“Any fool can empty a creel.”

She drank it gratefully, feeling its heat fill her. Taking the crust out of her pocket she dipped it in and chewed. Finally the tramp said, “Did it meself, once.”

“What?”

“Cut and run.” He turned his empty eye on her. “About thy age, I might have been. Lived in a fine great palace, very classy. Very high up. Landlord thought the world of me. The apple of his eye, I was.” He wheezed. “Couldn’t take to the work, though. Started to think meself a bit above it. Had plans for meself.”

She took a thoughtful gulp. “So what happened?” A scatter of rain rattled from the gorse bushes. The tramp waved a mittened hand. “Fell. Came down in the world. Took me a long time, to get this far.” She stared, wondering. For a moment a sort of regret clouded him, then he wheezed out a laugh. “Not that being gentry of the road don’t bring its own rewards. Got something else to go to?”

“Not yet.” Emptying the mug, she put it awkwardly on the sand; the dog knocked it over and licked the inside avidly. “Thanks for that. I’d better go now.”

“I know thee,” he said slyly. “Trevelyan’s lass.”

She sighed. “So?”

He winked. “All them ancestors of thine. Tearing of their limbs and grinding their teeth while the devils pitchfork ’em. They ruled the folk around here for centuries, hard as nails. Now here’s you, as low as low. How are we all fallen so far, eh?” He rubbed the dog’s neck. “But don’t look back, that’s what I say. Uses you up.” As she stood he bent over and picked something up from the seaweed. “Dropped something.”

It was the rectangular card. “That’s nothing,” she said shortly.

“No? It’s got letters on it.” The tramp held it out. “I know writing, though I’m no scholar.”

Surprised, she took it from his wet fingers. It was the same card, but the words were vivid in neat pen strokes.

I FEEL I OWE YOUR FAMILY SOME RECOMPENSE.

PLEASE COME AND SEE ME AT THE HALL.

AZRAEL

The tramp took out a bitten pipe and lit it. “Good news?” he asked slyly.

She stared at him in utter astonishment.

four

That night she said to Martha, “What’s recompense ?”

“Lord.” Martha took a pin out of her mouth and pushed it into the seam she was straightening. “You’re the book learned one, Sarah. Some sort of debt. Paying back, like. Pence is money, isn’t it?”

Sarah nodded. A hoarse call from the next room made her lift her head; she went to stand, but Martha dumped the sewing in her lap.

“I’ll go. Better for him not to see that, eh?” As she went out Sarah flexed the bandaged hand gloomily. She’d take it off when she went in to see him. Otherwise he’d have one of his rages. She put Martha’s sewing aside, got down on the sooty rag rug with its burned holes, and carefully put two more pieces of the precious sea-coal on the fire. For a moment she stayed there, in the meager warmth, watching the yellow flames spurt.

At Darkwater Hall when she was little, there must have been fires in every room, great roaring blazes. Sometimes she tried to remember it, but it was too long ago. There was a dream she had sometimes of a dining room, sumptuous with chandeliers and cut glass and candles, the tables heavy with food. Was that just imagination? Or had it been real?

After a while she took the white card out and read it again.

COME AND SEE ME AT THE HALL.

Behind her the October gale rattled the bushes; they tapped on the window like fingers, as if the wet ghosts of the drowned had climbed the cliff path a few weeks early. She shivered, and crumpled the card. Then she dropped it into the fire and watched it curl. Blue flame burst from one corner. It crinkled into black tissue, and was gone.

The words had not been on it when he gave it to her.

She was certain of that.

Martha came back and gathered up the sewing. She looked worried. “I’m right glad the doctor’s due tomorrow.” She glanced over the deft needle. “We’ll need to pay him, Sarah. There’s only a half crown in the tin. Will Mrs. Hubbard pay you this week?”

The anxiety was clear under her voice.

Sarah went cold. The panic she’d kept down all day bubbled up; she wanted to blurt it all out, that there wouldn’t be any more money, that she’d thrown it all away in one stupid burst of anger. Instead she muttered, “I expect so.”

To cover it, she got up and crossed to the window. Moving the nailed rag of curtain, she let the wind gust into her face through the gaps in the frame. Reflected in the firelight she watched Martha sewing, a big, comfortable woman, pregnant again, almost slatternly, her long hair carelessly pinned.

“Can I ask you something?”

Martha looked up, surprised. “If it’s proper.”

“When I was a baby. When we lived in the Hall . . .”

Martha sighed. “You know I can’t talk about that. The master won’t have it mentioned.”

“I just want to know!” Exasperated, Sarah turned. “Nobody ever talks about it. I just want to know how it was! Did I have a big nursery? With a doll’s house and rocking chair?”

Martha looked uncomfortable. She bit the thread.

“Were there chandeliers, like crystal, all down the stairs?”

“I can’t talk of it. You know I can’t.”

“And didn’t you used to call me Miss Sarah?” The shock made Martha stab her finger. With a hiss she sucked it, dropping the needle. When she looked up she was flushed.